Helping individuals integrate 21st century science with ancient wisdom to make their lives and the lives of those in their relationship networks safer, more functional, healthier, happier and more fulfilled.

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Belonging is stronger than facts!

The
cover of the September/October 2018 issue of MIT Technology Review has – Technology
is threatening our democracy. How do we save it? and The “neuropolitics” consultants who hack voter’s brains. If you
have been in any of our TOV Center discussions over the past few years, this isn’t
“breaking news.” We have been talking about the pressing need for Americans to develop
skills required to make clear distinctions between “free speech” and “weaponized
memes.”

The
authors of the articles in this issue of MIT
Technology Review provide some very good information about how to make
those distinctions and develop the skills to protect yourself and your loved
ones. Below are a few quotes:

The problem is
that when we encounter opposing views in the age and context of social media, it’s
not like reading them in a newspaper while sitting alone. It’s like hearing
them from the opposing team while sitting with our fellow fans in a football stadium.
Online, we’re connected with our communities, and we seek approval from our
like-minded peers. We bond with our team by yelling at the fans of the other
one. In sociology terms, we strengthen our feeling of “in-group” belonging by
increasing our distance from and tension with the “out-group” — us versus them.
Our cognitive universe isn’t an echo chamber, but our social one is. This is
why the various projects for fact-checking claims in the news, while valuable,
don’t convince people. Belonging is stronger than facts. (page 15)

Whatever Russia
may have done, domestic actors in the United States and Western Europe have
been eager, and much bigger, participants in using digital platforms to spread
viral misinformation.

Even the
free-for-all environment in which these digital platforms have operated for so
long can be seen as a symptom of the broader problem, a world in which the
powerful have few restraints on their actions while everyone else gets squeezed.
Real wages in the US and Europe are stuck and have been for decades while
corporate profits have stayed high and taxes on the rich have fallen. Young
people juggle multiple, often mediocre jobs, yet find it increasingly hard to
take the traditional wealth-building step of buying their own home — unless
they already come from privilege and inherit large sums.

If digital
connectivity provided the spark, it ignited because the kindling was already
everywhere. The way forward is not to cultivate nostalgia for the old world
information gatekeepers or for the idealism of the Arab Spring. It’s to figure
out how our institutions, our checks and balances, and our societal safeguards
should function in the 21st century — not just for digital
technologies but for politics and the economy in general. This responsibility
isn’t on Russia, or solely on Facebook or Google or Twitter. It’s on us. (page 16)

No, big tech
didn’t make us polarized (but it sure helps). (page 17)

As
I said in the title of this blog -- Belonging
is stronger than facts! Humans are genetic
memetic social creatures that are hardwired “to belong” because humans
depend on other humans for their very existence from conception to death.
We need others and -- consciously and
subconsciously -- seek out groups that will accept us – and so do our children.

One thing every parent
can depend on is that if their child does not feel that she or he belongs, someone
or some group out there will pay attention to your child, accept your child and
satisfy your child’s genetic need to belong – even if it kills them.

The
greatest challenge we face today is creating new options for Americans “to belong.” We at the TOV Center
believe that we have the meme building blocks to create them.

● Some come from
ancient wisdom from our Christian and Jewish faith traditions that teach values
that “Protect and Preserve
lives, Make Lives more Functional and Increase the Quality of Life
for All People” – and that “all
people are made in the image of the Creator.”

● Others come
from one of the most treasured documents in our history, the Declaration of Independence -- “We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty
and the pursuit of Happiness.”

● And the
foundational document of the US Government and Justice System is The
Constitution is another very important source -- “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common
defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of
Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America.”

Let’s make
America a place where American citizens know they belong!

__________________________________________________

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TOV Center’s message and would like to learn more about Lives 1st
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